Following the trend set by George and Dustin in the last post, one of our AI programmers, John, wrote this up about his work on the Colossus Boss.

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For a moment I am Hayden Tenno, trapped in the heart of Lasria, on a mission to kill a fellow agent infected with the Technocyte virus. It was supposed to be simple, a quick, efficient termination of the target. The cold metal creeping up my arm is a stark reminder that I am now also infected. I feel myself evolving, the virus slowly infusing me with great power. The Glaive growing from my hand is crucial to my survival. I am trapped inside a warehouse. The Hazmat teams sent to help me are laying down heavy fire. I am the enemy. I haven’t switched sides, I am on my own, and everyone is out to kill me.

I take cover in the warehouse and dodge the bullets from the troopers firing through the windows all around me. I pick them off one by one with my superior gunplay and their frequent shouts to surrender are silenced by dispatching my Glaive to slice off their heads. The blood starts to flow; each trooper’s termination achieved with a volley of bullets or the slicing of limbs. The fight is almost over when the ground convulses, shaking terror into all of us. The few remaining troopers scream as a giant ape-like creature crashes to the ground and joins the fight.

For a few seconds there is relief as I watch through the shattered glass. Bodies are thrown around and dust fills the air as the creature destroys everything around him. I feel safe inside the warehouse, the creature far too big to get through the locked doors. A moment later my sense of security is gone along with the wall in front of me. Rocks thrown by the creature smash away at the fortress around me before he charges straight through the remains of the building. Anything in his way is pulverized.

I run from the broken warehouse and grab the weapons dropped by the troopers. A tense fight develops with the colossal monster. His skin looks soft. Each bullet producing a spray of Technocyte blood as it pounds into his grotesque skin. My glaive slices into him spraying even more blood. His attacks continue; there is nowhere for me to hide. Any solid object I attempt to cover behind is soon gone, smashed by the flying rocks or his formidable body.

My ammo begins to run low as I bravely fight on. Then a strange shockwave spreads across Lasria causing the creature to run. He disappears into the distance as he jumps across the buildings. I can finally relax but sense that my fight with the Colossus is not yet over…

As the programmer responsible for bringing the Colossus to life I often go through the above experience. My name is John Newton, an AI programmer working on Dark Sector. With the release of the latest Dark Sector videos it was great for me to see the Colossus boss being shown to the public.

I was initially given the task of making an exciting boss fight inside the church. At this point in the game the Colossus had evolved bulletproof metallic skin and could leap around inside the church, jumping between pillars and throwing rocks at Hayden. Somehow Hayden had to find a way to knock the Colossus from the pillars and eventually kill him. It was an exciting character to work on and was great fun playing the completed fight. At the start I was given the basic level design and the great looking Colossus model. I then worked with the talented animators while developing the AI code. We would have regular reviews of the fight to iron out problems and come up with new ideas to make the fight fun. Once I had the Colossus working well, we put a lot of effort into perfecting it by fixing bugs, adding sounds, effects and polishing the church interior. It was a great team effort.

After the church fight was finished we added the Colossus to an earlier mission in the game because he had become such an exciting character to play against.This took some additional work to customize him to a new scenario but it has turned out amazing.

I’ve worked in the games industry for 8 years now on many top selling titles but the Colossus is certainly one of my favorite things to have worked on. I’m glad people can finally see him in action and will soon get to fight him.

Could you guys please release some screenshots and artwork of Hayden in his leveled up armor? It is a bit spoilerific but it could also generate some much needed hype for the game. thanks. :D oh and keep up the great work.

you can looke for new relesed vids on gametrailers.comand you can see in the last video which is on the home page ,and in the video you can check out some new things ,like robots new boss battel, and Hayden with full body armor .right know i want thise game moore then i ever did, please release a demo in europe.

What happened to the armored guys from the original sci-fi concept? Someone said they're in this version too, but I haven't seen anything of the sort. Where could I find some artwork or screenshots of them?...maybe a render?

The worse thing that any game can do is keep pushing out the realease date, it almost makes me not want to even play this game since it keeps getting pushed out. I'm was very excited to play this game and now I have to watch more release dates get pushed back. sorry to sound like a jerk but you have lost me as a fan of the game even before i played it.

Is there going to be a demo available on XBOX live before the game is released or not?Digital Extremes has promised a demo last year but it never happened.And now, DS is coming this month, we still don't get to try it out.As much as I like the game, I can't be sure whether the game is worth buying or not just by looking at it and reading all those coverage on IGN, GameSpot... etc.

Digital Extremes, why did you guys only keep mentioning Nort America release for this month?

How about Europe?You guys do kno I live in europe right, you should, considering I talked to one of you in private and got those cool SWAG posters ;)

But I hope this game comes out on March 25 as well :/

And yes...demo fo the love of god release a good demo so my massacre of anger can decrease a bit :D

PS. I saw IGNs DS blog...awesome!I also downloaded the "main theme" for the game, very cool. So far the music Keith Power has done is awesome!From all the videos I have kept watching the sound especially the music is really great, and hopefully you guys have some sort of a plan on a Collectors Edition for this game if not, a soundtrack release of some sort would be great!

I really really hope you make a PC version of this game as well. This game looks awesome & the graphics are beautiful, could only imagine what the power of a computer could do for those graphics over the console systems. Please make a PC version!

My name is Jarvis Slacks. I write for the gaming blog Port City Gamers at www.gamers.starnewsonline.com. I was wondering if I could ask you guys a few questions, about the game and some other stuff after it was released. I am a fan, and hope that others could be interested in it as well. Thanks. You can email me at jayslacks@gmail.com. Take care.

dont lision 2 inbody els thay just blow throw the game and didnt take no time in it thare is more story then gow thay just tell you 2 kill these guys and thay are called locust ok.dark sector is a masterpice in the making from here it only gets better

Reviewers have gave Dark Sector fair ratings, saying that the game is a blast to play but that the story was essentially ignored after the initial introduction of the Hayden Tenno character. I for one look forward to your response on if there were enough sales of the game to consider franchising the game, placing Hayden in a new environment with his evolved powers, possible giving him a number of bio-metallic weapons to scroll through besides the glaive. possibly a real glaive, (staff with blade on the end) to fight with, among other things. I think that Hayden and his powers are still very marketable and would love to see him in different venues from around the world. The great thing about the character also is that he isn't some exploded mountain of muscle,like G0W and UT, he looks real and believable. anyway thanks for the fun game!

Not enough control options.Clumsy control.(Seriously it's as though Dark Sector ripped off Resident Evil... which has always had a terrible control scheme, and the hero has to bust through every door and window with the most faggishly flamboyent acrobatics, finishing with a dramatic pose after each??!?)

Too much focus on one weapon.

No option to turn off passive abilities... such as rifle stealing

Complete lack of a melee system

Finishers lacked variety and didn't satisfy due to complete lack of melee system.

The boss battles were tiresome and the fights against the soldiers was cool at first, but soon devolved into the rudimentary. Throw glaive, pop caps, throw glaive, pop caps, dodge, dodge... throw glaive...

This game loses it's flavor faster than day old chewing gum.This game lacks any inspiration.

Thank god for rentals.Whoever designed this game needs to go play games and find out what makes good games good.

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"Team Dark Sector" is the code word for all of the hard-working individuals at Digital Extremes and D3PA who are bringing Dark Sector to life.
This blog will follow the development of the upcoming Dark Sector videogame. We will be making regular posts throughout the development cycle, giving gamers an inside look at the process of how a videogame is created, introducing them to the team and a space to house other random acts that may occur. This is your forum as well as ours - comment, share, discuss - join the ride.